I’ve been wanting to post a photo puzzle and, I confess, I’ve been pretty busy this week with Halloween preparations and work, so these are not the greatest pictures. That said, can you find the four differences between the first picture and the second? Hint: One of the differences is so obvious, it’s a whopper, the others, you may have to be a smartie to see.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Below today’s cartoon is my list of “S and S” phrases.
I’ve been waiting for this week, with the “Sweet” theme and harvest time, to post this cartoon.
Here is my list of 15 “S and S” phrases (I know there must be more out there; I may add to this over time): safe and sound, Sense and Sensibility, seven and seven, shirts and skins, shoes and socks, short and sweet, sights and sounds, sit and spin, slip and slide, slow and steady, soup and salad (and sandwich), stars and stripes, strikes and spares, sugar and spice, sweet and sour.
This week’s word puzzle is another variation of the standard consonants puzzle: Think of as many common phrases as you can that fit the format S___ and S___. For example, in keeping with the “sweet” theme: “sweet and sour,” or “sugar and spice.”
Take some time over the next couple of days to think of some “S and S” phrases. I have 13 now, and I expect I’ll have a few more by Wednesday.
By the way, if you solved last Friday’s Energy Sudoku puzzle correctly, the center square should have spelled out the word MINDPOWER, reading from top to bottom.
In honor of Halloween, this week’s theme is “sugar” or “sweet.”
And here’s a syrupy smile:
I hope your weekend is full of treats, not tricks.
Disclosure: I am not a Sudoku fan. I have, however, thought it would be interesting to make alternative Sudoku puzzles, so I thought this would be a good opportunity.
Today’s puzzle is a word-sudoku. It should be easy to solve (follow the usual rules, all of the given letters appear in each row, column, and outlined square). When you are done, the center square, reading across and from top to bottom, will spell out the answer to this question: What is an often-overlooked energy source that we are sure to need a lot of in coming years?
I’ll post the answer over the weekend.
Here is my Energy-themed cartoon. I think that a lot of people are probably still in the dark about what some of the alternative and oil-independent energies involve. And this cartoon won’t help those people one bit.
Underneath it, you’ll find my list of words from Monday’s challenge: Words that contain the three-letter sequence URB.
My answers to Monday’s challenge (20 words): blurb, bourbon, burble, curb, disturb, furbearing, imperturbable, masturbate, purblind, refurbish, sourball, suburb, tourbillion (a whirlwind), turban, turbine, turbinado, turbojet (-prop, -charge, etc.), turbot, urban, and urbane.
I did not include variations on any of the above words (curbing, disturbance, etc.). I also found a few obscure words (durbar, kurbash), but didn’t count them. I use the word furball all the time (referring to our cat), but it’s not in the dictionary.
I want to introduce another type of Monday word puzzle this week: Three-peats. The concept comes from a book I had in elementary school called The Mammoth Book of Fun and Games (at least, that’s the first place I saw this kind of puzzle). The goal is to find as many words as you can that contain a three-letter sequence somewhere in them, which can include the first three letters, last three letters or anywhere in between. The three letters must always appear right next to each other.
Today’s letters are URB, and one valid answer is TURBINE, a word that fits this week’s “Energy” theme. How many more words can you think of that contain URB within them? I’ll only count a root word once (so, the plural form, or other verb forms, won’t count as additional words). Keep adding to your list until Wednesday, when I’ll post my words. I have 15 now, and I expect to have about 20 by then.
I hope you have an energized week!
This is one of my favorite smile photos. It is downstairs in our house, on a pipe that covers some electrical wiring. The theme for this week, therefore, is Energy and Power. Answers to the Telling Time puzzle from Friday are below the photo.
Keep smiling.
Answers from Friday: Military vision is 20:20 (for vision), which in military time is 8:20 p.m.; Even odds is 1 to 1, or 12:59; information is 411, or 4:11; favorite jeans is (Levis) 501, or 5:01; and double spin is 720 degrees (twice 360), or 7:20.
This puzzle is a continuation of a similar puzzle that was published in my Mighty Mini Mind Bogglers book with Sterling Publishing. None of the clocks here overlap with the ones already published. I’ll post answers over the weekend. And I won’t make any puns about having a good time with it or anything.
This week, like last week, I didn’t have a cartoon in mind for the theme. So I thought of this one last night and drew it today. I had an idea I liked better, but it was in my head as I was going to sleep, I didn’t write it down, and now I can’t remember it.
My answers to the MNT consonants puzzle are below the cartoon.
These are the 15 words I thought of that use the consonants MNT in that order and no others: amenity, amount, emanate, manatee, manta, meant, mentee (as opposed to mentor), mint, minty, minuet, minute, minutiae, monte, mount, and mountie.
There are, of course, a bunch of proper nouns like Manet and Minot. Also, there are a few obscure words like ammonite, amniote, and amn’t (am not). Let me know if you think of others that are not proper nouns or obscure words.
